How to change the memory size of an ova appliance before deploying it on VCenter Server

virtual-appliancesvmware-vsphere

In this Question george was asking if it is OK to lower the memory of VMware Virtual Appliance.

What I would like to know is how to modify memory size in the ova file before the deployment? because after the deployment in Vcenter Server if I lower the memory size the VM refuses to spawn requiring at Least 8GB of memory.

Best Answer

Without making some configuration changes, vCenter will require at least 8 GB of RAM to function properly because of some of the hard-coded values for Java and other dependencies.

For reference, this is a setup with 2 hosts and 22 VMs, using the Web client:

esxi-vcenter:~ # free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          8002       7872        130          0        380       3828
-/+ buffers/cache:       3663       4339
Swap:        15366          4      15362

Yes, some is cached, but usage does spike depending on activity, so I highly recommend leaving it at 8 GB.

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